A multigenerational family legacy of hustling boxed riot punch

In late January, a few days before the United States’ shitposter-in-chief kicked off his big dumb trade war in earnest, I filed a column here at Fingers about a pair of non-tariff-related wine-industry storylines, highlighted in the then-just-released Silicon Valley Bank State of The Industry report, that are in a bit of tension with one another. On one hand, SVB executive vice-president and founding author Rob McMillan argued that “neo-Prohibitionists” were “using marketing tools disguised as scientific studies, cherry-picking data, and changing the definition of health measurements.” On the other, he noted that wine-based ready-to-drinks (RTDs) grew 29.3% year-over-year. “RTDs are growing like a rocketship, still,” he said in a video unpacking the findings of the most recent edition of his two-and-a-half-decades-running report.

“I don’t want to hear another fucking word about ‘neo-Prohibition’ until every winemaker in America has tried and failed to stand up an RTD brand,” is how I synthesized those two ideas at the time. Admittedly, a little flip! As is often the case, my colleague Kate Bernot, longtime beverage-alcohol journalist and lead analyst at Sightlines, found a way to make a similar case point with a whole lot more grace than your fearless Fingers editor is able to muster.

“I urge the wine industry to lay down its arms in this battle,” she wrote a couple weeks ago on LinkedIn, a professional platform, responding to yet another trade-led effort at debunking the allegedly shoddy science of Large Abstinence. “Arguing for the health benefits of alcohol will always be fraught, and heart health is not what draws most consumers—certainly not young ones—to the wine category.” She would know, having done a bunch of reportage for this February 2025 VinePair feature on this, and doing deep-dive analyses at Sightlines on an ongoing basis. I called her up earlier this week to expand on her plea, which I think is correct, and to chat through the stuff that is working for winemakers. Including RTDs, yes, but not limited to them. Below is an edited and condensed transcript of our conversation.

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